HIS111: Lectures 1-5

Kai-Fu Lee’s Argument

Success from AI is guaranteed given success of previous industrial revolutions

Disproven by cotton gin example - a machine was created for profit with no concern for human rights and well being

Jack Mah’s Argument

We need to change the way we learn so that we are not replaceable - focus on the human and creative side of innovation

What do humans need in an Industrial Revolution (3)?

1. Bigger, faster access to training, critical literacy, and practice-engaged learning

2. Informed, robust policies that protect core foundations while still adapting

3. Creating new trans-disciplinary teams that are open to learning from failure

These Archives Defy Erasure

Digital library across Latin American countries meant to preserve LGBT+ stories and keep them out of reach of censorship from repressive governments

Your Brain on ChatGPT

MIT study that showed relying on LLMs reduce the users ability to retain information and brain activity entirely

Reliance over time can lead to reduced critical thinking and quality of analysis of outputs given by LLMs creating echo chambers

Case of Timnit Gebru

Google employee who raised concerns about racial biases in AI and was fired

Division of Silicon Valley

1. Scientists/innovators working in companies driven by business models designed for profit

2. Business world, representing ‘deep state’

Industrial Revolution Definition

Large scale economic and social changes following the introduction of major new, usually mechanized technologies

Characteristics of an Industrial Revolution (3)

• Major changes to workforces, finance, living arrangements, and management

• Often includes deskilling (cheapening of labour for profits and rise of managerial classes

• Resistance from society often requiring negotiation between workers and capitalists

London Matchgirl’s Strike (1888)

Children creating phosphorous matches that contained dangerous chemicals demanded better working conditions but were denied and threatened with being fired - shows how industrial revolutions can have adverse effects on workers without government regulation

Characteristics of the First Industrial Revolution (4)

• Originated in Britain but quickly became a global model

• Spanned 1760-1840 but was not recognized until 1799

• Began with coal, iron, and cotton and later steam and railways

• Rise of automatic machinery and systems requiring little or no human intervention/labour

Uses of coal in the First Industrial Revolution

1. Coal - cheaper to smelt iron ore (replaces firewood)

2. Produced “town gas” used for lighting

3. Boilers that burned coal created powerful new engines to run mines (drainage), factory machines, locomotives, etc. (accelerating work)

Money in the First Industrial Revolution

• Modern financial systems were an advent of the First Industrial Revolution

• Money saved from the use of slave labour allowed slave owners to invest in trade networks and manufacturing

• Banks expand - Industrial Revolution required more short and long-term credit, created new revenue, diversified services

The Birth of the Corporation

The concept of modern corporations have their roots in the late 16th and early 17th Centuries

Governments funded and “chartered companies” to trade with and colonize Asia, Africa, and the Americas

Limited Liability Joint Stock Company

Company owned collectively by shareholders/investors meaning investors are only liable for their money and nothing the company does - allows people to fund and make profit off of unethical actions with no responsibility

South Sea Company

British Joint Stock Company founded in 1711 dealing in the early Slave Trade, shipping slaves across the Atlantic

South Sea Bubble

In 1720, investors overvalued the South Sea Company by putting in more money than it was capable of returning creating a major financial collapse - demonstrates the dangers of unregulated investments

The Bubble Act

Created 1720 after South Sea Bubble, requiring a Royal Charter to form, regulates investment to prevent companies being overvalued

Colonization Corporations

Established to invest in colonized land, company investors acquire a block land claim, front money for European migration and settlement and profit from taxes, land values, rent, interest, etc

Conquest Pattern (3)

Framework for conquest and colonization established by waves of European migration

1. Legalistic Measures - invention of legalistic measures to create a gloss of legitimacy (appears legal but is not)

2. Declaration of Territorial Claims - establishing a hold on territory to the exclusion of others, including the original owners

3. The establishment of towns/centres - creating permanent stations that legitimize and institutionalize conquest

Laissez-Faire

Free trade, low intervention capitalism

The Invisible Hand

Unintended consequences in the market, misinterpreted as a driver of progress without regulation

Why ChatGPT is Bad at History (3)

1. Uses information from international propaganda networks

2. AI companies create a profile on you based on your conversations and can omit details it thinks might not be favourable

3. Can ignore larger picture details, and focus in on irrelevant or insignificant details

Main Types of AI (2)

1. Generative AI - Can create content in seconds (e.g. conversations, photos, videos, etc)

2. Predictive AI - Predicts future outcomes based on statistics (e.g. who banks should provide loans to) - author of AI Snake Oil argues it will never work given difficulties in predicting human behaviour

AI Snake Oil

AI that is advertised or believed to be able to do something that it is not actually capable of doing

Case of Allstate and Predictive AI

Allstate, an insurance company, used predictive AI to determine who to provide different insurance rates to - discriminated against seniors as it found that they were more likely to accept higher rates without searching for other offers

Public Historians

Trained historians with academic backgrounds who produce content for public audiences

Public history can be seen through museums, documentaries, public lectures, books, etc

Potemkin Village

Facade pulled on Catharine the Great where villages were unpacked and moved to wherever she travelled in the countryside to make it look more plentiful and populated than it was

Now means a facade used to control a narrative or public image

What is AI

Umbrella term that generally refers to algorithmic technologies and computer systems designed to replicate and automate traditionally human skills

ANI

Artificial Narrow Intelligence - AI for narrow, specific tasks (e.g. Siri, Spotify recommendations)

Rise of Advertising

Advertising - Use of paid communications in the promotion of goods, services, or ideas

• Increasingly elaborate by 1880s with rise of professional marketing

• Start of ‘media awareness’ designed to influence consumers to buy the product, but also to signal what the product represents

Snake Oil Medicine

Lack of regulation in design, manufacturing leads to waves of dangerous products containing harmful chemicals

Patent medicines would be advertised as a “cure-all” solution and became more common as military technology developed

American Food + Drug Act

1906 - New regulation standards largely putting an end to the era of traditional snake oil, motivated by temperance movement and stigmatization of drug use shifts practices

‘Cocacolonization’

Inspired by the success of 1870s French Coca Vin containing alcohol and cocaine

Coca Cola created in Georgia, US, in 1886 but alcohol was removed due to temperance legislation - cocaine remained due to no narcotics classification

Becomes a symbol of American culture and power and is exported as a forerunner to imperialism to create addiction, dependency, and favourable feeling towards American culture

Rise of Prohibition

In the late 19th Century, temperance movement grew as women were attracted towards leadership rules - often victims of alcohol-related domestic violence

Alcohol became a symbol of hypocrisy, inequalities in Christian society, poor conditions for people on the margins

Bans fuelled resentment, resistance, adulterated bootlegging + organized crime - key example of overregulation

Rise of Dangerous Food Products

During the First Industrial Revolution, a parallel rise in demand for cheap, commercial, food grew due to low wages

Food companies lacked regulation and would fill food with toxic, cheap, substances to save production costs

Workers did not have the money for lawyers so this went unchecked for an extended period

Food and Drink Act

Implemented by British government to regulate dangerous and undisclosed contents of food and drink products that were creating health problems for the population

Failed in the short run due to a lack of experts on food chemistry (untrained government officials were conducting research), but creates a “pure food movement'“ and regulatory standards

Digital Walled Garden

A version of the internet that is no longer open or directed towards the public interest

Digital Colonialism

Technology empires (companies) that dominate the world through control of digital infrastructure, data, and the ownership of computational power

Ofer seemingly lucrative development deals to countries with little digital infrastructure, but then take control by stealing data from all citizens of the country

Also provide massive donations to schools across the world in exchange for data of students that allows for targeted advertising

Blueprint for Sovereignty (3)

Three key ways ‘Against Digital Colonialism’ argues states could gain more autonomy over their digital futures

1. Emancipation of Public Education - Children need to be trained on how technology is created so they can create and innovate new systems, not just rely on preexisting ones created by tech giants

2. Public Procurement to Decentralize Tech Power - All projects of tech companies should be publicly disclosed, and governments should supply the public with decentralized participatory infrastructure

3. A Different Era of Digital Cooperation - Countries need to cooperate to form multilateral agreements on regulation

Racializing Regulation

Temperance laws used, imposed upon, or overly enforced in racial minority communities

E.g. opium regulations introduced after influx of Chinese immigrants who were addicted to opium as a result of British imports of opium into China

Opium Wars

Due to trading deficit for Chinese tea, the British secretly imported opium into China to reduce debt and create dependency

Chinese government ban opium which leads to multiple wars with the British resulting in forced legalization of opium

Scientific Racism

Misidentification of biological and genetic evidence of racial and cultural differences and political projects to improve discriminatory and oppressive policies

Categorization historically main precursor to attempt at colonization + domination

Dopamine Marketing

When corporations attempt to influence your decision to buy their product through targeting dopamine (a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure), often creating returning customers

Empire

A large territory or set of disparate territories encompassing many different peoples ruled by a single power, and without the consent of all those governed

Imperialism

A system of domination by one geographical area over others in the form of an empire, sometimes but not necessarily involving settlement or colonization

Colonialism

Control over territory and its peoples by another,

• Ideologies of superiority and racism often with such domination

• Control may be incomplete or contested but involves a measure of formal political and legal rule

• Colonialism is often, but not necessarily accompanied by the settlement of the subordinated territory, a process known as colonization

Boom Industries

Letting revenue explode in new industries without regard to regulation - often fuelled by colonial expansion and investors interests

Land Values

Inheritance rights - can amplify discriminatory measures and inequality intergenerationally

Perspectives on Canadian Treaties

Constitutionally recognized agreements between the Crown and Aboriginal peoples

• British-Canadian Perspectives - Treaties extinguished Aboriginal land title, appropriated Native language and phrases to negotiate

  • Used treaties to make land available for European settlement

  • Provisions (education, infrastructure) way of enduring assimilation

• Common First Nations Perspectives - Agreements and contracts subject to renewal, understood terms like “as long as the river flows” to mean permanent bond

  • Used treaties to safeguard rights

  • Way of ensuring community health and growth

The Indian Act

1876 - National legislation governing first nations status, bands, and reserves - used to force assimilation of First Nations + stop resistance

• Continually amended, imposed uniform policies on diverse political bodies, imposed overriding superintendent general

• Direct response to threat of Indigenous resistance

Case of Colonial System and Iceland

Icelandic immigrants in the 1940s come to Canada and invest in colonial development on Indigenous land

Used the money gained to send back to Iceland to fund the Icelandic independence movement and reduce dependence on Denmark

Land Speculation Corporations

Companies dealing in land for investors to buy and sell for profit - in Canada often on Indigenous land

• Popular but underlined colonial strategy to generate investors who can help fund infrastructure and drive up sale prices

Good Model of Industrial Revolution in Japan

Previously closed society targeted by US expansionists - sign Treaty of Kanagawa in 1854, opening small sections of the economy but maintaining a strong sense of cultural heritage becoming an industrial superpower

Fracking

Unsustainable and environmentally damaging oil extraction method that pumps high pressure detergents into the ground to force oil to the surface, creating tectonic instability and toxicity in the process

Human Fracking

Social media giants target human attention in order to increase engagement, but destroy our ability to care, think, and our attention spans

Addictive Design Factors of Social Media (3)

Brain hardwired for live connection with real humans, social media (SM) creates an addictive heightened synthetic replica

1. Speed of access

2. Ease of use

3. High reward

Accusations of SM Giants (6)

• Infinite Scroll - content never ends, keeping users scrolling for hours

• Autoplay - videos automatically play, capturing attention without user action

• Push Notifications - constant alerts create FOMO and compulsive checking behaviour

• Appearance-Altering Filters - promote body dysmorphia with unrealistic beauty standards

• Likes and Social Validation - Dopamine-drive feedback where teens seek validation through likes, comments, and shares

• Algorithm Amplification - content algorithms show increasingly extreme material to maintain engagement, exposing teens to harmful content

Platformization

Shift from social media websites to social media platforms (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, etc) leading to centralization of user data

Third Party Companies

A company, service, or person who performs an additional function in a 2-party transaction or relationship (customer/seller: provider/user, etc.)

Often not the original legal owner/producer of the resource (content farm, subcontractor, etc.)

In the context of social media, they are often the companies that social media platforms sell your data to for marketing purposes

Third Party Cookies

Paid software placed on websites by a separate company to track online user behaviour, patterns etc - mainly what other websites you go to so they can tailor marketing to specific consumers

British East India Company

British joint stock company, founded in 1600, collapsed 1874 - Founded with British Crown to take on Spanish and Portuguese monopolies over South Asian and later East Asian trade into Europe

Largest corporation in the world, devastating for local economies (price manipulation, debt, walled gardens)

Economic domination leads to political domination lays foundation for British colonial rule

Outsourcing Oppression

When third party digital companies are paid to coerce and mobilize the masses for state pursuits in a manner that reduces resistance

Mythologizing Colonial Finance

Banks intentionally built to be appealing and open (e.g. open windows to give a feeling of transparency)